“It’s Alive!” – SFI launches a new programme for horror shorts

The Swedish Film Institute (SFI) has launched a new programme for creative horror shorts produced by established or fledgling film makers. Dubbed It’s Alive!, the programme will co-fund a maximum of five shorts in its first year. The deadline for applications is February 1, 2016.
-We want to be scared, really scared, and we want horror movies that reflect both the present and the future. We’re also aware that genre movies traditionally attract lots of male filmmakers, and therefore we’d like to point out that we really expect women directors to apply, SFI’s short film advisor Andreas Fock says.

A total of 1.25 million SEK (approx. 146.000 USD / 134.000 EUR) of public money is spent on these horror shorts. Four regional film investment bodies contribute to the funds, with the bigger portion coming from SFI. The filmmakers themselves are also expected to put in at least 75.000 SEK of their own money, at least in the form of unpaid work.

The aim of the new programme is to promote “horror shorts that surprise, push the genre ahead and scare viewers”, and thus educate film makers in the art of genre films. The length of films is restricted to five minutes. -Everyone we spoke to [in the film industry] agreed that there is a lack of interesting short films, and that we’d like to see more shorts. Now we’re killing two flies in one blow, Fock said.

We’ll see what our beloved neighbor’s will come up with this money. Something horrifying, I hope.